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Edited by Roger Sugden, Rita Hartung Cheng and G. Richard Meadows

There is currently a popular view that the world is undergoing profound changes in the fundamental relationships upon which it is organised. In particular, there is widespread talk of a ‘globalised’ economy, facilitated by and associated with ‘new’ technologies and practices. There is a further consensus that within this ‘globalised’, ‘new’ economy, regionalisation in some form is important. The aim of this volume is to address these topical issues, presenting perspectives from which they can be analysed and exploring specific aspects in greater detail.
The contributors provide a framework for understanding current trends, and suggest approaches that highlight appropriate ways forward in the context of both opportunities and dangers. In doing so, they discuss specific cases and explore detailed policy possibilities, including the prospect of stimulating change through multinational engagement and debate.

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6. Antitrust issues: global cartels, competition law and the new economy John M. Connor 1. INTRODUCTION Joel Klein, at the time the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice, gave a speech in May 2000 on the topic of antitrust policies that made the following unvarnished claim: the core principles of antitrust reflected in the Sherman Act . . . should not be changed in this [new economy] era . . . The legitimate ways of acquiring and maintaining market power are essentially the same today as they were a hundred years ago; and the illegitimate ways are fundamentally the same as well. (Klein, 2000, pp. 1Ð2) Klein then goes on to enumerate the principal methods of monopolising markets, using illustrations from the DOJÕs case against Microsoft, an avatar of the new economy (see Box 1).1 BOX 1. THE MICROSOFT CASE In a unanimous and forceful opinion, the federal Court of Appeals in Washington, DC on 28 June, 2001 ruled that Microsoft had abused its monopoly position in the market for PC operating systems (Labaton, 2001a). This decision opens the company to years of private antitrust litigation by rivals that it injured and possibly by consumers or the state attorneys general. The appeals court rejected the government’s claim that Microsoft had attempted to monopolise the market for Internet browsers and remanded the question of whether Microsoft had illegally tied its own browser to its Windows operating system to a lower court for retrial. ‘Every so...

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